


In Light of Day

by muggle95



Category: Magic Kaito
Genre: (also on my bingo card but officially being filled later), (which I'm officially filling), Bad Things Happen Bingo, Bleeding Through Bandages, Gen, Hiding an injury, Prompt Fill, could be shippy if you squint, implied gun violence, worried friends
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-11
Updated: 2019-05-11
Packaged: 2020-03-01 06:14:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,102
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18794602
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/muggle95/pseuds/muggle95
Summary: Kaito isn't acting like himself and Saguru worries





	In Light of Day

**Author's Note:**

>   
> Requested by @copperscales (who is more often my beta than a recipient that I'm writing specifically for, so I hope this lives up to expectations ❤️) for the prompt Bleeding Through Bandages
> 
> also available as a [rebloggable post](https://muggle-writes.tumblr.com/post/184813078001/bad-things-happen-bingo-bleeding-through-the) on tumblr

Kuroba was being quiet today, Saguru noted with a frown. He wasn’t taunting Nakamori or pulling his usual pranks. He almost looked to be in pain.

Not that Kuroba’s expression would look like pain to anyone else. He looked irritated or at worst sleep deprived, but Saguru could see where the makeup on one cheek was smudged off, displaying an unhealthy pallor underneath, and Kuroba was moving less fluidly than usual, almost tenderly.

Normally when Kuroba looked this ready to be out of class, he would cause some sort of chaos and then just disappear. It was worrying Saguru that he hadn’t done that yet.

Koizumi was also sending more frowns Kuroba’s way than usual, though the rest of their classmates seemed oblivious. Even Nakamori didn’t seem to notice Kuroba’s discomfort, as she was busy ranting about the stupid thief taking up all her father’s time.

His suspicion and concern grew all day, until, as lunch ended, he spotted a dark stain on the torso of Kuroba’s school uniform. It was hard to tell what color it was, against the already-dark fabric, but something about the pattern seemed unmistakable.

Saguru caught Kuroba’s wrist, pulling him aside as their other classmates filed down from the roof after lunch.

Kuroba shot him a wary look, tinged with a bit of panic.

“What do you want Hakuba?” he asked, but even that question was lacking its usual fire.

“Kuroba-kun, you’re bleeding,” Saguru pointed out.

Kuroba followed his glance down to the dark spot on his uniform, and cursed under his breath. He pulled his shirt up to poke at bandages underneath, which were thick and lumpy (inexpertly applied) and had quite visibly been bled through.

There had been a heist last night, but Saguru didn’t remember a moment that Kid might have been injured, especially like that, just above the hip.

…Unless…

He had heard a car backfiring a couple of times as he left. It wasn’t a terribly uncommon sound in the city, but if that had instead been gunfire? Like an American movie?

Saguru would have to watch more closely for a third party with firearms at the next heist. (if the police had shot Kid, it would have been in the night’s report, and it  _wasn’t_.)

He and Kuroba had settled into an unspoken almost-friendship along with their unspoken truce that involved Saguru not pestering him outside of heists, even though he was long-since certain that Kuroba was Kid. (Kuroba was a prankster, sure, but one didn’t just get into jewel thievery for no reason, and Saguru, somehow, trusted his judgment. It came with being friends, or something. In any case, Kid always returned the jewels he stole and Saguru found it very hard to resent the thief for leading them all on a merry chase, even, or perhaps especially, since he did so repeatedly.)

He didn’t like to see his friend injured, and, even if they weren’t the same, he didn’t like the idea of Kid having been injured by an unknown third party. (If they  _were_  the same, as he suspected, then this was doubly upsetting.)

Kuroba was looking at him with wide, wary eyes again, as though he suspected a trap.

Saguru just sighed. He’d earned that suspicion, with his behavior early in their acquaintanceship, especially since they never managed to talk about  _things_  (Kid) directly. “Go home, Kuroba-kun. Why are you even at school with an injury like that?”

He knew the answer of course, and he could read it in the mulish set of Kuroba’s jaw, even as it went unspoken. Kuroba would  _always_  be at school the day after a heist, no matter what condition he was in. It was, in some sense, his alibi. Plus, Saguru suspected, Kuroba used the opportunity to listen to Nakamori’s rants about her father spending all his time on the thief and none on her, to make sure the status quo was maintained or to get an early warning if not.

“I’m fine,” Kuroba said instead, though they both knew it was a lie. He pulled his shirt back down, and made a show of straightening it, though he frowned briefly at the bloodstain.

“Go  _home_ ,” Saguru repeated. “I don’t care what happened; take care of yourself.”

Kuroba hemmed and hawed all the way back to their classroom, but just outside of it, he flashed Saguru a bright grin, and didn’t quite manage to disguise the motion of tossing down a smoke bomb. By the time the smoke cleared, Saguru could just spot Kuroba disappearing down the hall and around the corner because he was looking for him to leave. Everyone else in sight was staring at Saguru. He sighed and made his way into the classroom.

“Hakuba-kun. You know unnatural hair colors are forbidden in this school,” the teacher scolded tiredly, as though this didn’t happen to someone every week. (as though substitute teachers weren’t always trying to scold him for his  _natural_  hair color, considering he was half-English and didn’t have the same glossy black hair as most of his full-Japanese classmates)

“I’m sorry sensei – Kuroba did it,” Saguru apologized, holding back a grin. At least his friend was listening to advice and taking care of himself, even if he was using Saguru himself as the distraction to draw attention away from his getaway.

The teacher just shook her head and gestured for him to sit down. “If you can, wash it out before tomorrow,” she instructed, before jumping straight into her next lecture.

When Saguru got a chance, he slipped his phone into his open textbook and opened the camera app, in selfie mode. His hair was now a bright, almost fluorescent blue, (no wonder everyone was staring) so that could definitely be worse. When Kuroba was upset with someone, they tended to wind up with a hair color they hated. Besides being neon, and on his own head, Saguru wasn’t particularly opposed to the color blue.

Saguru spent the rest of the afternoon distracted, hoping Kuroba had someone at home to take care of him. He just had to keep reassuring himself that not having to put on a show of being “fine” would be easier on Kuroba even if he wasn’t being sensible and resting and taking care of that injury. (Saguru was realistic, it would take a lot to convince Kuroba to do “nothing” while recovering.)

Maybe when Kuroba trusted him more, Saguru would volunteer to help him just so he could make sure Kuroba was, in fact, taking care of himself. Even if that made him an accomplice.

Some things were worth it.

**Author's Note:**

> Is it pure fanon that Kaito frequently dyes all his classmates' hair? Yes absolutely what's your point?


End file.
